Shadow into the Vermilion Gate

A single oil lamp flickered in the cellar of Listening Wind Tower, the wick spitting a tiny spark.

Feng Wuyai sat with his back to A Ying, holding a jade token in his hand, silent for a long time. Only the two of them were in the cellar; even the usual attendants had been dismissed. At times like this, the master either had important matters to discuss or a mission for her to undertake. A Ying stood three paces away, neither urging nor asking. She knew her master’s temper—hurry him, and he would only take three more detours.

“The Shen family,” Feng Wuyai finally spoke, his voice drier than the lamp wick. “Vice Minister of Revenue Shen Boyong, embezzling river transport silver and forming factions for personal gain. Someone in the court wants to move against him but lacks solid evidence. This task is yours.”

A Ying acknowledged, stepped forward, and took the jade token. The token was warm and smooth, yet cold to the touch. The front was engraved with the character “Shen”—the credence for the inner courtyard of the Shen mansion. She turned it over; the back was plain and unadorned, except for a very faint scratch at the lower right corner, as if something had been scraped against it. She didn’t dwell on it and tucked the token into her sleeve.

“What identity should I use to enter?”

“A musician,” Feng Wuyai said, still without turning around. “The Shen family is holding a recognition banquet the day after tomorrow, inviting several opera troupes and music ensembles from the capital. Listening Wind Tower has placed someone in one of those ensembles. Your name is already listed. After the banquet, make an excuse to stay on and investigate slowly.”

A Ying nodded. She had done this kind of job no fewer than ten times, intimately familiar with it. Yet tonight, she felt her master had unfinished words. The cellar was too quiet, quiet enough to hear her own heartbeat.

“One more thing,” Feng Wuyai said, as if hearing her unspoken thought. “On this mission, investigate only corruption. Do not meddle in anything else.”

A Ying looked up. The words were too weighty. The master never drew boundaries lightly; if he drew one, it meant there was something in the Shen household he didn’t want her to touch. She opened her mouth to ask, but swallowed her words. If the master didn’t say, asking was futile.

“Understood.”

Feng Wuyai turned half his face, the lamp light flickering across his profile. He looked at A Ying, his gaze pausing for a moment on her left wrist—covered by the sleeve, nothing visible, but he seemed to know what was there. A Ying instinctively hid her left hand behind her back. The old crescent-shaped scar under her clothes burned, as if it had caught fire from his stare.

“Go,” Feng Wuyai averted his gaze. “Set out early and return soon.”

A Ying bowed, turned, and left the cellar. At the door, she suddenly looked back: “Master, why me?”

Feng Wuyai didn’t answer. The oil lamp sputtered again. He turned his back once more, resembling a withered stump.

A Ying stood for a moment, then didn’t press further. She clenched the jade token in her palm, working up a thin layer of sweat.

—

Under the same moon, a lamp still glowed in the west courtyard of the Shen mansion.

Shen Jingru sat at her desk, practicing calligraphy with her wrist suspended. The brush tip landed on the lines from “Admonitions for Women.” She wrote very slowly, each stroke meticulously precise, as if competing with someone. Her maidservant Bi Tao entered with a cup of tea, saw her still writing, and quietly placed the cup on the corner of the desk.

“Miss, it’s already this late. You need to rise early tomorrow.”

Jingru didn’t lift her head. She finished the last character, then set down the brush. She picked up the teacup but didn’t drink, merely using the lid to nudge the floating leaves.

“Bi Tao, when you went to the front yard earlier, did you hear anything?”

Bi Tao thought for a moment. “I heard the steward say that the invitations for the day-after-tomorrow banquet have all been sent out. The Marquis of Dingbei’s household, the Vice Minister of Rites Sun’s family, and several Hanlin academicians… also, two music ensembles have been invited.”

“Music ensembles?” Jingru tapped her knuckle lightly on the rim of the cup. “Father has spared no expense.”

Her tone was as flat as if she were commenting on the pleasant weather, but Bi Tao, who had served her for eight years, could detect the suppressed tension beneath the calm. Bi Tao dared not respond, only bent down to tidy the papers on the desk.

Jingru set down the teacup. Her right shoulder suddenly itched. She raised her hand and rubbed the spot through her clothes—a butterfly-shaped birthmark had been there since childhood. Her mother said it was natural, a sign of good fortune. But when she was eight, she overheard a conversation between her mother and her confidante, and learned that the birthmark had been burned into her skin with medicinal stones, to make her impersonate another person.

That person was Liu Wanqing, the first wife of the Shen family, who had allegedly died in childbirth eighteen years ago. Her daughter would have been the legitimate daughter of the Shen household.

Jingru rubbed the itchy birthmark and suddenly smiled faintly.

“Bi Tao, bring me that journal.”

Bi Tao understood. From a hidden compartment under the cosmetic case, she took out a thin booklet and handed it to Jingru. Jingru opened it. Inside were records of various matters of the Shen household written in code over the years—who had met which external official on which day, who had sent what to the Buddha hall on which day, when Shen Boyong had been in a bad mood and smashed a teacup. She recorded these for no other reason than to use them one day.

She picked up the brush and wrote on a new page: Recognition banquet, invite music ensembles, Marquis of Dingbei’s household.

After finishing, she closed the journal and handed it back to Bi Tao.

“Keep it safe. Tomorrow, I must play the part of a filial daughter again.”

Bi Tao took the journal, acknowledged, and withdrew. Left alone, Jingru stared at the paper on which she had been writing “Admonitions for Women” all evening. Suddenly, she reached out, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it into the brazier at her feet. The flames licked up, and the paper quickly turned to ash. Staring at the ash, she whispered:

“Bear it a little longer.”

—

The night before the recognition banquet, A Ying scaled the outer wall of the Shen mansion.

The wall was three zhang high, made of blue brick, with fragments of porcelain embedded on top—a defense against intruders. A Ying used an old locust tree by the wall for leverage, lightly touched the top of the wall with the tip of her foot, and drifted in like a leaf. As she landed, the inside of her left wrist was scraped by a protruding shard, adding a fresh cut to the old scar. Beads of blood seeped out. She clenched her teeth, made no sound, and casually wiped it with her sleeve.

The copper whistle at her waist gleamed coldly in the moonlight. She pressed it to confirm it was still there, then moved along the base of the wall.

The Shen mansion was larger than she had imagined. The front courtyard was decorated with lanterns and banners, preparations underway for tomorrow’s banquet; servants bustled about moving tables and chairs. She skirted the front yard, choosing only the less-traveled paths. The floor plans provided by Listening Wind Tower clearly marked the location: the Shen ancestral hall was at the northwestern corner of the estate, usually locked and opened only during festivals. Tonight, she needed to go to the ancestral hall first—the Shen family genealogy and old account books were likely stored there.

The door was made of nanmu, with an old-fashioned brass lock. A Ying pulled a thin needle from her hair, inserted it into the keyhole, and with a few twists, unlocked it. She pushed the door open, entered, and closed it behind her.

Inside the hall stood the memorial tablets of the Shen ancestors. The top row was gilded, fading to plain white below. In the center was an altar table bearing an incense burner and fruits. A Ying didn’t immediately start searching. She stood at the door for a while, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. Once she could see clearly, she moved behind the altar table.

Behind the table hung a row of portraits. The topmost was the founding ancestor of the Shen family, followed by successive patriarchs and their lawful wives. A Ying’s gaze swept row by row, stopping at the second-to-last one.

It was a portrait of a woman, exquisitely detailed—every nuance of her brows and garments meticulously rendered. Alongside was an inscription: Portrait of the Deceased Mother, née Liu, Wanqing.

A Ying had meant only to glance and continue searching. But her gaze froze on the portrait, unable to look away.

The woman in the painting had clear, cold brows and eyes, a slightly pointed chin, and a very faint mole at the left brow—identical to the face A Ying saw in her own mirror.

A Ying’s breath hitched. She instinctively stepped back half a pace, her back bumping against the altar, causing the incense burner to sway. She reached out to steady it, but her hands were trembling.

She stared at the portrait; the figure in the painting stared back. Those eyes seemed alive, recognizing her across eighteen years and a thin layer of silk.

“This…” Her throat tightened, unable to utter a single word.

She raised a hand to touch her own face, then looked at the painting. The brows, the eyes, the mole, even the curve of the chin—identical. How could two people in this world look so alike? She had grown up in Listening Wind Tower, knowing she was an orphan, knowing there was a past to be uncovered, but never had she imagined—never had she imagined that she would see her own face in the ancestral hall of a stranger.

She drew closer to examine it in the dim moonlight. The woman in the painting appeared about twenty-five or twenty-six, dressed in a plain white mourning dress—no, not a mourning dress, but a wedding dress altered to plain white, with traces of red still visible at the collar. The artist had been meticulous, even clearly depicting the stray hairs at her temples. The eyes were the finest part—not the typical rigid forward gaze of most portraits, but slightly downcast, as if looking at someone outside the frame, or at something cradled in her arms.

A Ying’s throat tightened again. A bizarre thought struck her—the person in the painting was watching her.

Not absurd. Those eyes gazed from behind the silk, unwavering, as if waiting for her to speak.

The copper whistle at her waist grew hot as she clutched it. She looked down at the whistle, then back at the portrait. The whistle was a keepsake from her foster mother, who had only said before her death: “Child, you are not unwanted.”

She hadn’t understood at the time. Now, she seemed to feel a glimmer of understanding.

The old scar on her left wrist began to ache. It was crescent-shaped, present for as long as she could remember. Her foster mother said it was an old injury she had before coming to Listening Wind Tower, its origins unknown. Now, the scar throbbed rhythmically under her wrist, as if it recognized something.

A Ying took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She was no naïve novice. She forced her gaze away from the portrait and searched the drawers under the altar. The genealogy was in the second drawer. She pulled it out and quickly flipped to the most recent generation.

“Shen Boyong, married Liu Wanqing, bore a daughter…”

In the column for the daughter, the ink had been blotted out. Heavily, as if deliberately erased. Next to the blot, in a different shade of ink, four characters had been written: “Died in childbirth.”

A Ying’s fingers froze over those four characters, her fingertips cold.

Died in childbirth.

She recalled Feng Wuyai’s words: “On this mission, investigate only corruption. Do not meddle in anything else.”

The master knew. He must have known. He sent her to the Shen mansion, claiming it was about corruption, but the jade token he gave her—the faint scratch on the back… She took the token from her sleeve again and examined the scratch in the faint moonlight filtering through the window cracks.

It was an extremely shallow character: “Liu.”

A Ying’s pupils contracted.

Her hand holding the token fell limp, and she stood motionless for a long time. The ancestral hall was so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat, pounding rhythmically in her chest. She looked up again at the portrait. The woman in the painting still gazed at her, her features tender, as if waiting for her to speak.

A Ying opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

She did not know who she was. Yet she suddenly felt a strange, unprecedented sensation—that the person enshrined in this hall was connected to her.

The night watch drum sounded from outside: the third watch. A Ying snapped back to reality. She could not linger here. She returned the genealogy to its original place, closed the drawer, and took one last look at the portrait.

“I will come back,” she whispered to the portrait, unaware she had spoken.

She turned, left the room, and locked the brass lock. In the moonlight, her shadow stretched long, trailing from the hall door to the base of the wall. She hugged the wall on her return, stopping halfway.

She lowered her head to look at her left wrist. The fresh cut on the old scar was still oozing blood; beneath the beads of blood, the crescent-shaped scar glimmered faintly.

She remembered the inscription on the painting: Portrait of the Deceased Mother, née Liu, Wanqing.

She remembered the character “Liu” on the back of the jade token.

She remembered her master’s words: “Do not meddle in anything else.”

Wind blew over the wall, rustling her sleeves. A Ying stood in the moonlight of the Shen mansion, feeling for the first time that her eighteen years of life were like a painting carefully trimmed—with the most crucial piece cut out.

And that cut-out piece now hung in the ancestral hall of this vermilion-gated mansion, its features identical to hers.

Who was she?

A Ying tugged her left sleeve down to cover the burning old scar, turned, and disappeared into the night. Tonight, she had not obtained the evidence of corruption she sought, but had stumbled upon a secret far more startling than corruption.

And that secret had only just begun to reveal itself.